Jim Bradley was in love with Glenda Solomon. Glenda Solomon was in love with Jim Bradley. He wanted to get married. She didn't.
After they'd been dating for nine months, he gave her a ring and told her she could take her time about choosing a date. She was 34 and had never been married and was scared of the whole idea.He had been married before, had been single for years, had dated a lot. "I was doing quite well not married," he says. But there was something about Glenda's spirit and gladness of heart, he says. Being alone lost its appeal.
He didn't want to pressure her. Several years later, however, after she'd chosen and dismissed two wedding dates, Bradley decided pressure was in order. "I called her bluff." Let's marry or quit seeing each other, he said.
At the time he was trying to force her decision, she read the infamous Newsweek article that said women over 40 have a better chance of getting hijacked by terrorists than of getting married. She certainly didn't want to get hijacked, she says. Jim Bradley looked like good travel insurance.
They married in November 1989. He moved in with her. Three weeks later, he found her crying. She said, "You never go home." He said, "I know." Having been married before he could speak from experience. This is how it is when you are married, he told her. You live in the same house with your husband.
You do give up some privacy and freedom. He told her he was sure she'd get used to it. Now, seven years and two children later, she seems settled.
"Jimmy," she says, "is the kindest man I know." She calls him "Jimmy" for the same reason she calls her father "Daddy." She is from the South.
Glenda Solomon was born in Mississippi, moved to New Orleans as a teen, went to college in Texas, then graduated from the University of Utah. She sounds more sophisticated than Southern. When she tells people she had a speech therapist as a child, people ask her if the therapist was, perhaps, from New York City.
She was one of six children of parents of Lebanese descent. Her father started a chain of movie theaters, became wealthy, helped found the American Film Institute and remains well-known in the movie industry.
As for Bradley, he was born in Salt Lake City, graduated from Skyline High School and the University of Utah. His parents were teachers - his mother in the public schools, his father chairman of the department of business at the U.
After graduation, Bradley worked on the campaigns of Sen. Frank Moss, Rep. Wayne Owens, Gov. Scott Matheson. In the early '80s, he was director of the Utah Energy Office, under Matheson. In the mid-1980s, Bradley had a consulting business, with an office next door to Solomon's uncle. The uncle was always talking about introducing them.
One night, on his answering machine, Bradley got a message from Solomon inviting him to a charity benefit. He called her back. "Would I be your date?" he said. She said, "No, I have a date. I want you to buy a ticket." He laughed and asked her to meet him for coffee.
Solomon was director of Camp Kostopulos at the time. She could be seen supporting dozens of civic and charitable groups - from the opera to the March of Dimes. From their first meeting, she and Bradley realized they shared the same values. They were both quite social and civic-minded.
She liked his willingness to volunteer. She liked the way he treated the disabled children she introduced him to at Camp Kostopulos. One night after a camp fund-raiser, a street dance, he stayed late to help her pick up trash. She watched him bending over to snag stray gum wrappers. She thought what a good person he was to be doing such unglamorous work.
It was she who encouraged him to run for governor - for the simple reason that someone had to do it. The incumbent, Leavitt, had something like a 90 percent approval rating.
Neither of the Bradleys think it's necessary to get rid of the incumbent every time, she says. She wanted Bradley to run because the democratic process is important. In Germany, before World War II, people had a choice of political parties but they just kept voting for the same party until finally there was only one party, she points out.
She had no illusions about the campaign. She and Bradley were dating the first time he ran for office - in 1988, unsuccessfully, against Salt Lake County Commissioner Mike Stewart. She and Bradley were married two years later when he ran successfully against Commissioner Brad Barker. She helped him with that campaign and the next one, in 1992, when Republican Mary Callaghan unseated Jimmy.
She has been lucky in her life and it would be selfish of her, now, to say her husband should not do his civic duty but instead stay home with her and the kids. The campaign also takes precedence over him working in the frame shop they own in Sugar House.
The Framery is an enjoyable business, but she only bought it, she says, to have something to do in case she wasn't able to have children. "But then I got pregnant and pregnant."
Today Nick is almost 4 and Zeke is 2. Bradley's two children from his first marriage are Bill, 25, and Liz, 21. They also live in Salt Lake City.
Bradley describes family life with two preschoolers as spending a lot of time picking up toys together. He also says there is a lot of yelling about who is the boss.
Glenda says she is relishing this time. She hired a manager for the frame shop and stays home with the two little boys. This summer they made daily visits to feed the horses and rabbits at Camp Kostopulos, just down the road from their house.
The foundation for her life is a spiritual one, she says. An Episcopalian, she has for years been active in a weekly non-denominational Bible class. She spends some time each morning in prayer and scripture study.
If you visit the Bradley home on a weekday afternoon, you might find Jim Bradley just coming in from a campaign meeting, taking an hour or so to unwind before he leaves again to go to a meet-the-candidates-event. This afternoon, as every afternoon, the little boys are in constant motion. They run, jump, ask for juice, ask to play outside, ask for a friend to come over, ask to take the dog for a walk.
Glenda has a roast in the oven, but she decides she should feed the boys and then meet Jimmy later, at a restaurant, for a quiet dinner and conversation.
So, that night, after his meet-the-candidate meeting, the Bradleys sit at the Hungry I and order calamari. The restaurant owner comes and talks to them, says he's voting for Bradley and his friends are voting for Bradley. However, he points out, Bradley's chances of winning aren't good.
Like many other voters, this man doesn't quite understand why Bradley chose to run. "You can't always choose your time," says Bradley. His wife talks, again, about the importance of having a choice.
Throughout the political discussion, she continues to talk about Leavitt in the warmest way. Well . . . she does think he should have given the $100 million surplus, some of it anyway, to nonprofits, because the people who work for the YWCA, the Family Support Center and, yes, Camp Kostopulos are some of the hardest-working, lowest-paid and most dedicated people in the state.
"Should I have criticized Mike Leavitt?" she asks her husband. "What? You are asking a man's opinion? Why start now?" he responds. Then, still grinning, he says, "Go ahead. Criticize him."
He seems amused by her inability to be too critical. She says that he is the one who is always optimistic.
The Bible has taught her not to hold grudges. Life has taught her not to hold grudges. Not too long after she moved to Salt Lake City a young man she was dating was killed in a car accident. They'd had a disagreement, weren't friends at the time. No matter what they disagree about, she and Jimmy never go to bed angry, she says.
They sit at the restaurant talking about what they love about each other. Suddenly, the Bradleys seem to fear that too much praise can curse a marriage. Watch out, she says, we'll probably get a divorce in a month. They laugh. He's the one who is first to stop laughing and say, "No. We won't get a divorce."
In the first place, he says, there aren't any single women left in Salt Lake who haven't already dated him. No one would be willing to go through that again. So it would be a bad idea for him to be single. It would also be a sincerely bad idea for Glenda to be single, he believes.
Just as she believed him when he said she'd get used to marriage, his wife seems to respect his opinion that they should never get a divorce. He says it with authority and she seems to be listening, "We are better off together."